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Working Paper
The Federal Reserve's Portfolio and its Effect on Interest Rates
We explore the historical composition of the Federal Reserve's Treasury portfolio and its effect on Treasury yields. Using data from 1985 to 2016, we show that the divergence of the composition of the Federal Reserve's portfolio from overall Treasury securities outstanding is associated with a statistically significant effect on interest rates. In aggregate, when the Federal Reserve's portfolio has shorter maturity than overall Treasury debt outstanding, measures of the term premium are higher at all horizons; likewise, when the Federal Reserve's portfolio has longer maturity, term premiums ...